MAJOR BLOGS - www.majorblogs.net - The following is a transcript of the testimony of the most important witness to date on performance-enhancing drug use and the Mitchell Report at the House Hindsight Committee. Speaking for the Committee is ranking Democrat Henry Waxjob.

WAXJOB: I would like to thank the witness for making time to speak with us today. I would ask that you rise, raise your right hand, and be sworn in.

(At this point, a large piece of turf flying off of the witness strikes Congressman Waxjob, causing a momentary delay as staffers clean him up.)

WAXJOB:  Please state your name.

WITNESS: I'm the Game.

WAXJOB: Can you give us your full name, please? 

WITNESS: The Game.... Oh for cryin' out loud.. Major League Baseball. The Show? The National Pastime? Capice?

WAXJOB:  Mr. Game...

WITNESS: Call me MLB. Everyone does...

(Laughter in the gallery)

WAXJOB: Mr. MLB, I thank you for coming to the Hindsight Committee to help us generate another vote-getting media spectacle that really accomplishes nothing. It is very clear to us that, for a celebrity of your standing over more than a century in the United States, something has gone very, very wrong.  We appreciate your coming clean with us in your depositions for the Committee and for the Mitchell Report that was released in December. For the official record of the Committee's continuing hearings on the use of performance-enhancing substances in baseball, can you tell us when you first started using them?

WITNESS: It's been a pretty long party, Congressman. Lemmie think... We drank a lot of hooch back from the teens on to the early 1960s, but that doesn't count. Does it? Hmm...  I would say after that that I had a little romance with speed, uppers and the like, although I want to say clearly for the record that I never dropped acid in the sixties in spite of what Grace Slick said in that People interview.  The night I met her though was a pretty wild party and...

WAXJOB: I was thinking more about the use of steroids and human growth hormone, or HGH?

WITNESS: Oh! Juicing! Why didn't you say so? That was after 1994, most definitely.

WAXJOB: Why does that year seem so certain to you?

WITNESS: I had the worst case of indigestion that year. My owners and my players have never liked each other much, truth be told, but that year they let it all hang out, if you know what I mean...

WAXJOB: You would be referring to the baseball strike and owners' lock-out?

WITNESS: You got it bubbie.  Gave me a case of indigestion worse than I got from that tongue sandwich with cole slaw I ate one night in October at the Carnegie Deli back in 1923.  Worse than that pain in my tuchus Kennisaw Mountain Landis from 1919 after a few of my boys wanted to show that old skinflint Comiskey that they were not to be trifled with and fixed one of my World Series Games.  I'm telling you, it was baaad.  I got booed!

WAXJOB: Booed?

WITNESS: Fans, chromedome! Fans.  They booed me after all the years I gave them some of the best moments of their miserable stinkin' little  lives. Better than they got at home, let me tell you! And you know what?  Worse than booing, they did something to really piss me off.

WAXJOB: What would that be?

WITNESS: They didn't come! They stopped coming to the friggin' games!  It was terrible. Awful. We could have lost everything. Something had to be done.

WAXJOB:  What did you do?

WITNESS: We needed an edge.  Something to bring people back to the game.  I sat around a good smoker with the owners, discussing this very subject,  and when some guy from Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh!!, stands up and says 'Home runs!'  Suddenly I see smiles coming across everyone's pusses. Dingers. That's it! Fans can't resist a good out of the park round-tripper.  Then I think some and I say, but we already get guys who can hit 'em out of the yard.  It isn't doing enough.

WAXJOB:  This would be the part of the testimony from your deposition that I wanted to ask you about... I'm a little dubious here about the truth of your testimony. Specifically you say here in the deposition that you gave under oath that the ghost of Roger Maris came to you all?

WITNESS: Emmis! I swear on the life of my sainted mother, Rounders! We're all  sitting in the room, and suddenly Roger Maris materializes over by the buffet spread. He's hungry, having been dead all those years, so he helps himself to a sandwich before he starts talkin' to us.

WAXJOB: We're pressed for time, as we have a vote coming up on the House floor. Can you keep to the facts of your testimony, please?

WITNESS: Okay, okay. No one wants my color any more. Just the action. Whatever.  Maris says we should get a couple of guys to go after his record. Now, we've got some good, hitters. Hell, we've got some really above average hitters, but with free agency and all of the money flying around, who wants to work hard enough to be able to beat 61 dingers in a season?  Then we remember that there are a couple of guys who are pretty good, but, with a little help might be a whole lot better hitters.

WAXJOB: And this "help" would be where the steroids first came in to your game?

WITNESS: Nah, they'd been around for a while, mostly for guys that needed to heal up faster. We never realized their full cash potential until Pete materialized too.

WAXJOB: And Pete would be?

WITNESS: Rose?

WAXJOB: Ah. Charley Hustle. You said he materialized. I didn't realize he was dead?

WITNESS: Neither does he... (Laughter in the gallery).  Naw, he was trying to hit me up for another shot at coming back to me to manage or something. Pete's always beggin' me for a shot, usually when his arm gets tired from all of that autographing.  Anyway, he's a guy who knows how to cut a few corners so we decide to listen.  He made a good case: We needed a home run record chase after Maris, who gave the idea the big thumbs up between bites of his pastrami and swiss.

WAXJOB: I just want to have it on the record that we've been unable, through Madame Boxer, the Senate Medium, to contact Mr. Maris from the Great Beyond to confirm any portion of Mr. Game's story.

WITNESS: MLB, your honor, MLB. Anyway, so we talk to a guy, who knows a guy who can get his hands on the juice for both of these mooks.  Suddenly both of them start looking like King Kong in a baseball uniform and start peeling the hides off of the pills.  The fans came swarming back.  Sports Illustrated had nice things to say about me again. Even put me in a swimsuit that year. Was that a mistake...

WAXJOB: So it just exploded from there?

WITNESS: You know how it goes. You have a bunch of over-achievers and no one with talent in this game likes to be shown up. Barry was pissed that we didn't ask him to the party, so he decided to drop by the ol' street pharmacy himself for a little revenge.

WAXJOB: This would be the year that he stripped McGwire of the record?

WITNESS: The one and the same, your highness.  

WAXJOB: So how did it spread from there to infect you so badly?

WITNESS: I have to admit, I was getting a big rush out of all that power. I was bigger, stronger. My television time was selling hot. I was selling shirts, hats, caps. My big names were even bigger than before. I wanted more. 

WAXJOB: Is that when the PES use increased?

WITNESS: I am ashamed to admit it, but as part of my cure I've gottta: I was hooked. Big time. I let everyone do it that wanted to. I made it so that they would want to, too. If you're too small or you lack that little bit of power, I made sure that the guy who was juicing got in front of you. I had the trainers turn a big blind eye to it in the locker room.  And the cash it just kept coming in.

WAXJOB: So the message was clear?

WITNESS: Yeah, if you want to get ahead, you get big enough on your own, or you get 'roids or hgh to get there if you want to get there.

WAXJOB: Yet, when I look at the long history of your records, your accomplishments, most of them happened before all of this drug usage...

WITNESS:  It's true, Lord Mayor, it's true. That is why I find myself before you today, prostituted out before you in this sorry condition, and looking for an out of my dark ways.  Hell, I remember when guys used to get more done with lots of hooch and pepper games without all of this conditioning and pitch counts and all of that junk... We used to have real spikes... Ty Cobb... (The witness begins sobbing at this point and there is a hold in the transcript.)  I'm sorry, I get a bit emotional about this... We used to have...

WAXJOB: Fun?

WITNESS (Sniffling): Yeah...  Fun.

WAXJOB: So how do you think, going forward, you're going to find that fun again?

(Here the witness pauses, and looks quite blank for a few excruciatingly long moments.)

WITNESS: I would like to think that we can. I just don't see how.  My Commish is an owner. The players don't trust him. Hell, he couldn't even call an All-Star game right. My owners like the do-re-me that it brings in. The union guys who cover my players have become experts at keeping all these drugs going because their big names don't want it stopped because they like the cash too.   You all, and sometimes the media make a big fuss about it, but in the end it don't mean jack.  Fans these days are like sheep. They go where we tell 'em.  Hell, not only don't they complain, they even tell you all where to get off for making their trading cards and balls and what-not less valuable!   I'm sorry. That's the rage thing coming back up at me from all of the juice I've been doing. I'm so ashamed.

WAXJOB: So you're saying you would have to go to a little league  to  see a clean game?

WITNESS: No, I wouldn't look there either. Parents got this idea that they have to get their kids primed for me early.  That's why I'm here, your eminence. I want to keep the little kiddies off HGH. I didn't mean to do this. I swear to you all!  I just wanted my fans back!

WAXJOB: So the only clean game of baseball would be where?

WITNESS: T-ball, your majesty.  T-ball.  And I would get there while you can.

WAXJOB: And why is that, Mr. MLB?

WITNESS: I'm afraid that it won't stay clean all that long either, the way things have been going.

- BRIAN ROSS

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